


lightening in a bottle

by LadyVisenya



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: F/M, Not Beta Read, Summer Love, Winter love, idk if i like this so i might take it down, its very self insert, more like, takes place right before the 2008 summer olympics but after la liga, very rough so be nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 20:08:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15299085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVisenya/pseuds/LadyVisenya
Summary: A girl meets a boy in Rosario, Argentina. Can I make it anymore obvious.





	lightening in a bottle

“Si, uno. Solo uno,” It’s not like she had planned to come here alone. That hadn’t even been close to her original plan. Argentina wasn’t even her idea. None of this had been, but it would have been a missed opportunity to waste even her weeks off of work just because of one person. Just because of one thing. Her english teacher had once said that traveling solo could be amazing, but her english teach also had a superwholock sticker on her desk so it _had_ been questionable advice.

The ticket woman smiled stiffly, nodding and taking her money after she had stuffed it through the bottom of the glass window much like a bank. She wondered if she hated her job as much as Marnie did hers.

Taking her change and stuffing it into the Totoro pouch that she was sure was meant for pencils no matter how much Laura had insisted it wasn’t. It had been a joke. Especially since Laura and her were childhood friends and she _knew_ how much Marnie had hated that movie as a kid. Hated it in the day and been terrified at night of cat bus and all.

She ran her fingers over the matted cotton as she walked back to her apartment only stopping to get a coke and some fruit from the small store across the street from her hotel. The hotel that she also hadn’t picked out. An entire hemisphere apart and she still couldn't get away from _him_. It wasn’t fucking fair.

She texted Laura.

_Buenas Noches Buenos Aires, tomorrow another city._

Not entirely true. She’d be leaving before sunset and arrive in Rosario nearing midnight. Not ideal but she was done with sitting around and day drinking. She’d done enough moping and seeping in her own bitterness.

“Good afternoon Miss Gallagher,” the old man who was always sitting by the door said. He had a blanket of wares set up outside the hotel. There must be an agreement between the hotel and the man since no one had ever bothered him as he hustled his trinkets to the tourist staying here. Tourist like her. Marnie already knew what _he_ would have said; something stupid and pretentious about how you didn't get this by staying at the Hilton and the character of the city and other bullshit.

“Holla Ramon,” she said, greeting him warmly, smiling despite herself. She had gotten used to him over the last two weeks. Had even watched his things as he ran inside the hotel to use the restroom. Ramon had taught her how to tell when the mangos were nice and juicy, so ripe and sweet she’d lick the juice off her fingers. “You remind me of my daughter when she was your age. All your life in front of you. Si, today tu vida. Now she lives in Cordoba. We talks lots on the face,” he said while cleaning up. “Back so soon?”

Marnie shrugged, “I’ve spent so much time by the pool I’ve become a fish.”

Ramon laughed, his shoulders shaking. He took his time to laugh, eyes crinkling, the tanned skin folding into laugh lines like well worn leather.

It was the first time Marnie had ever gotten to know someone at her hotel. It was also the first time she had stayed in a hotel for so long. Her family had mostly only visited places they knew a friend of a friends to let them say at their house or had gone camping.

“Take some time to explore the city mija.”

“Si,” she said, her smile tightening on the instinctive lie, before she waved and slipped inside. There wasn’t anything int he world that could force her to abandon her hotel. He had been nice enough to put up his half of the money seeing as the airplane tickets and everything had been booked, and after hours on the phone Marnie had gotten refunds for most of the things like the car rental, choosing to extend her stay in the city instead. She couldn’t have done their itinerary. It would have been too much and she would have cried again, she just knew it and she was sone with that. Marnie had left crying behind the same way she had finished her two pints of ben and jerry’s for seven dollars.

It had been for nothing because she hadn’t ventured much into the city. Two weeks in Argentina and she’d only been down to the pool to day drink. Two weeks was enough.

* * *

The train ride to Rosario, a sea-river side town, she wasn’t quite sure and her quick google search on day trips from Buenos Aires hadn’t been clear on that, would have been much lovelier in the day. It was still breath taking in the setting sun, for the first part of the journey before everything was dark and the landscape went by unseen from her uncomfortable third class seat. At least there was room to stretch her legs unlike the plane seat where no matter how she had shifted, her legs had kept falling asleep.

Marnie had leafed through the books she had brought with her and had every intention of reading: in the plane, at her hotel, and now on her train ride to Rosario. It was the same pile of books she had onto of her desk at her dorm and never had time for. The pile that had made her give up on the to read list she’d had on her notes in her iPhone that had steadily grown over the last few years into monstrous proportions.

Marnie had deleted it one day, freaked out for a few minutes, taken a few hits off her roommate's and the dorms resident weed dealer’s joint, and let it go. Had stopped paying attention to the names of books. Had stopped caring when there was so many other things she had to do, would rather be doing. _What ever happened to the little girl that read more books than she could carry from the library every two weeks._

Let it go.

She wakes up as the train lurches into the station, her head slamming against the window she had been resting her face on. “Fuck.” Maybe Marnie should have gone with the coach option but she hated the idea of riding a bus for that long, being cooped up again, like in the plane. She hated sitting still for that long. Probably why she hated her job to be honest.

Marnie pulled down her beat up suitcase from the top cupboard, the sudden weight almost knocking her off balance. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and wondered how messed up her eyes had gotten from all the times she’d fallen asleep with her contacts in? How often were you supposed to get a new suitcase? Her’s having greyed from its original black long ago, the handle got stuck and was a bitch to close, not to mention that one of the zippers had gotten stuck, thankfully it was only the zipper on the smaller useless outside compartments.

Wrestling with her suitcase, still half asleep, she walked out in a line of tired passengers, bypassed the people waiting for their family and friends and sat down on the cold bench. She’d also forgotten that it was winter in Argentina while if was summer in the states. Stupid hemispheres and earth science. She propped her feet up on her suitcase as she waited for the bus that would take her to her hotel. The last bus of the night, and then the promised land.

She checked her phone for wifi, hoping that the station had free wifi so she could check in with Laura, maybe even go on Facebook if she was really desperate for human communication. There was always at least one tio or tia or _cousin_ on it.

“Disculpa, Miss,” a woman in a god-awful polyester uniform spoke, “the bus doesn’t run at this hour anymore.” Employers must really hate their employees and the uniforms they were made to wear was proof. She still itched from the shirt’s she had worn at the diner she had worked after school durning her senior year of high school.

“No, no,” Marnie said shaking her head and _refusing_ to believe that. She had double checked the schedules. “The last bus comes at midnight,” she said slowly, as if that would change things, “and it’s only 11:47 now.”

“Aveces llega temprano,” the woman shrugged, “It always never get here on schedule.”

“No.”

“Sorry.”

Marnie closed her eyes and took a deep breathe. She just wanted to get to her hotel and take a bath, get some sleep, maybe actually get some touristy things done while she was here.

“I can get you a taxi if you like,” the lady offered. “Siempre hay un taxi.” Despite them both speaking the same language, Marnie was always caught off guard by the thousand little differences between the spanish of the barrios in California, the spanish that wasn’t spanish so much as spanglish chronicling the intermixing of mexicans and americans and generational differences adding and adopting words until kimchi quesadillas and the spanish of Argentina.

“No, esta bien,” Marnie said even though it wasn’t, even though she should take a taxi and be chill for once in her life. “It’s just down the street. I can walk.”

“Are you sure?”

“Si,” she said, stronger this time, leaving no room for argument, and out she went with her finicky suitcase and stubborn streak a mile wide. Maybe if she had been softer, her tia mari had said when she hadn’t thought Marnie was listening, if she had been easier to deal with, _he_ wouldn’t have left her.

She snorted, angry and bitter and tired of everything. All these miles and she still couldn’t get away from her family and _him_ and everything. It was stupid, but it kept her going in the frigid winter air and she pulled her suitcase alongside her, only screenshots of google maps from earlier to guide her to her hotel.

Marnie should have just gotten a taxi. It would have been much easier.

She wouldn’t be here losing the feeling in her hands as she walked. But she never could do the easy thing. She had to be petty and angry and stupid.

It was only a few miles.

She had run more than that back when she played softball in highschool, being just good enough to make it through tryouts and eventually onto junior varsity through sheer age, but never good enough for varsity.

The suitcase skidded on a crack in the pavement for the thousandth time as she yanked it along.

She noticed a man walking on the street in front of her and tried not to panic. This was exactly like one of those youtube stories Laura liked to watch late at night about getting almost kidnapped or something. Shit, Marnie thought, what if this was how she got kidnapped and her parents never knew what happened to her and she ended up dead.

At least she wouldn’t have to go back to work, or school.

Fuck.

This was some horror solo traveller cliche.

“ Fuck,” Marnie cursed once again as her suitcase got caught a rock and she pulled sending her down on her ass.

“Estas bien,” the man said, voice barely more legible than a mumble.

“Si, si,” Marnie said, getting up and dusting herself off.

He righted her suitcase and looked at her curiously, as if just noticing her. “Are you sure you’re alright?” His hands have returned his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched in making him appear shorter than he really is. She can hear he mother telling her to stand up straight.

Marnie shrugged, “I’ll be fine as soon as I get to my hotel.”

“Why didn’t you just take a taxi,” he asks, stating the obvious, his long hair falling into his eyes.

“I like to make things harder than they have to be,” she admits, “I’m dumb that way.”

His lips quirk up, but if he laughs she doesn’t hear it. “Where’s your hotel?”

“Up the road,” she says, before adding her hotel name against her better judgement, “it’s the Esplendor. It’s supposed to be really splendid.”

He shakes his head, but he laughs this time, a quoted smothered thing that makes her think he doesn’t want her to hear, like he doesn’t trust her enough to laugh in front of her. “That’s awful.”

Smiling, she insists, “It’s punny.”

“Please stop.”

“No,” Marnie says, shaking her head, surfing her hands into her sweater before she developed frostbite. California winters had not prepared her for this. The wind coming of the river-sea wasn’t helping matters either.

“Well,” the man tells her, softly, the barest hint of a teasing edge to his tone, “you’regoing the wrong way.”

“No fucking way,” she says, outright collapsing onto the pavement, covering her face with her hand, closing her eyes, sighing. “This has just not been my day.”

She’s too tire to be mad. And if she was mad, she’d have no one to be mad at but herself.

“It’s in the town center,” he says gently, looking down at her, smiling ruefully, “y tu vas para la orilla.”

“Stop,” she groans, “please tell me this is a joke.”

He just shakes his head.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Si quieres,” he tells her, sitting down on the concert next to her, “I can call you a cab? I’ll even wait with you.”

“-because it’s midnight,” she mutters, nodding.

“Yeah,” he says softly, the glow of his phone illuminating his day eyes. She’d imagined him to look as shy as he sounded, gentle eyes, but there’s an intensity to them, self-possessed making her think he’s less shy than quiet, reserved.

“Wait,” she says, brain catching up to her scattered thoughts, “why are _you_ doing out so late?” Looks can be deceiving. He could still be a serial killer, for all she knows.

“I live near here,” he says, before the operator picks up and his gaze moves off of her and onto something only he can see, focused. “-si, esperamos en la calle. Gracias.”

“So what are you doing out so late?”

He looks back over at her, from where she’s still laying down on the cold concrete like a savage, “I needed to think about some things.”

“And you couldn’t at home.”

“No,” he says with a finality that makes Marnie want to ask a thousand questions, to press and press and see what happens. She doesn’t because she doesn't want to get murdered.

“Can I at least get a name so that when they make this crazy good movie about my trip to Argentina and how I _found_ myself here, I can write in the name of my savior?” She wiggles her eyebrows even though its dark and he might not be able to see, “I bet I could get Gael Garcia Bernal to play you? Or are you more of a Deigo Luna man?”

This time he laughs, still quiet, but he laughs and it makes him smile and his eyes sparkle and it makes Manrie’s heart feel lighter, good. He looks good. Not that he doesn’t usually look good. Not that she knows him-

“Leo, my name’s Leo.”

Propping herself up on one hand, she offers her other hand to shake, “I’m Marnie because my mom really leafed her way through her baby name’s book instead of just choosing one of the five names all mexican women name their baby girls.”

Leo laughs again, shaking his head at her, “Marnie. I like it.”

It makes her heart flutter and fuck, getting murdered would probably been better than this.

The taxi chooses that moment to pull up.

Leo helps shove her suitcase into the car’s trunk, giving the driver directions, helping her up, and hopping in with her, “or else you’ll probably end up in the wrong hotel.”

“Hey, I was on the right street,” she says, shaking his arm lightly, already much too at ease with this man she’s just met. Marnie wouldn’t mind getting lost again if it meant sending more time with Leo.

He just shakes his head and this for some reason has both of them laughing.

They spend the ride being ripped around by the taxi driver, going over bumps and cracks at a speed she’s pretty sure isn’t recommend, stealing glances at each other like they’re in middle school.

It’s over too quickly.

Marnie’s already sobering up, remembering that Leo’s just a stranger that she’ll never see again. That this is a one time thing-

Which is why it’s so easy to pull him down for a kiss once he’s gotten her suitcase out, hesitant at first until she feels him kiss her right back, embolden by the lack of sleep and knowledge that they won’t ever meet again. His lips cold and soft, tasting of tea and caramel.

“Gracias,” she says, breathless, torn between wanting to stay in this moment and needing to check in.

“I couldn’t just leave you alone and lost in the street.”

“You could have, but you didn’t.”

“I’m glad I didn’t.”

“Gracias,” Marnie says again, at a loss for words.

“Can I see you again? Tomorrow?” Leo says not fumbling for words at all. There’s no indecisiveness in his voice like Marnie often has, turning options over and over in her head, making split second decisions when she’s forced too.

Nodding, not really believing him, Marnie assumes this is just him being nice, even though she hopes he means it. “I’d like that.” It’s just one of those things people say and then never live up too. Like old friends making plans to reconnect that never actualize.

“I’ll come by at noon.”

“Okay.”

She looks back once she’s inside, catching the last glimpse of Leo as he slips back into the taxi.

*

It’s noon and she’s not had a drink for the first time in two weeks. Marnie has her _hopes_ up. She’s willing to admit _that_ much.

And Leo not only shows up, he shows up ten minutes early like the nice jewish boys Olivia’s mother went on about whenever Laura and her went over to her house because she had a pool, a proper private home pool. Not the apartment complex pool. She bets he holds doors open for old ladies.

He takes her too a cafe, off the beaten path that seem to exist everywhere that locals only know but she can’t find any in the city she’s lived in her whole life which is frankly unfair.

“Use the bombilla,” he says, smirking as she tries to take a sip of mate from the cup itself, getting all the bits of tea leaf in her mouth.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Marnie yelps, spitting the leaves into her napkin as he laughs.

They eat way too many sweets and walk the streets. Marnie doesn’t even realize she’s doing all the talking. She tells him about Olivia who’s mom keeps setting her up on dates with all the nice jewish boys she knows because they’ll be graduating college soon even though they all know Olivia’s going to grad school and kissing girls. About how she doesn’t feel okay unless she’s texted Laura at least once a day because they’ve spent so much time together growing up they might as well be sisters.

“I feel the same about my friends,” he says, watching her dig through the bowls of clunky colorful bracelets, “I’m always texting them and it makes me feel like there isn’t an ocean between us. Because if I don’t it would be so easy to lose them.”

Marnie squeezes his hand, “it goes both ways. They’ve made the effort to stay in contact with you too. To not lose you.”

He nods.

They move on.

*

There’s things they don’t talk about, suddenly falling through the stairs and remembering to skip that step the next time they go near that topic.

Her job. Her love life. The man who she thought she loved, might love, could have spent the rest of her life with. It’s still raw. But she’s open for the most part. Always willing and wanting to talk, process, let her thoughts leak out and hope it comes out the right way.

But Leo-Leo is so guarded. He’ll talk about most things, but never in too much detail, and it’s pulling teeth getting anything out of him deeper than “I live in Barcelona,” or “I grew up here.” His family is safe, mostly.

She can tell there’s tension between him and his brothers from what he doesn’t say. But he’ll talk about his grandmother and mother and sister for ages. About how good his sister is in school, much better than him, “she’s going to go far and study whatever she wants and get to do whatever she wants.”

“Like you’re brother? The business man.”

Leo shrugs, looking serious before smirking, “mejor.”

*

They fuck, which isn’t so surprising when they keep kissing in taxi’s and getting lunch together. A forgone conclusion if she really thinks about it.

He doesn’t hold her hand, but he grips her hips so hard that she has his fingers bruised into her sides. They’ve never kissed in public but she has a trail of kisses on her collarbone.

Marnie returns the favor, nipping at his neck, making him moan under her, running her hands through his thin soft hair, mussy like a child’s. Moaning his name, as she cums, toes curled.

They mostly stumble up into her room, stealing kisses in the deserted hallway, because its winter and not tourist season, all the way up to her room where he presses her up against the door as she fumbles for the key.

*

They lay next to each other after, messy and smelling of sex.

Tracing circles into her ribcage, Leo asks her, “why Rosario?” because why Argentina is off limits.

She smiles, giggling a little thinking about it now, “because it’s the best city in the world.” Because why else would a man come back here so often when he hasn’t lived here in years unless he really loves this place.

He laughs, rolling her eyes, used to Marnie’s antics by now, “no, deveras, por que Rosario?”

Marnie thinks about her train ticket back to Buenos Aires stuffed in her suitcase, heavy like a brick in the hands of someone about to throw it right threw a window. “Would you believe me if I said it came up on google and I thought why not?”

“From you,” he says, eyes crinkling, “yes.”

“Hey,” she protests, “whats that supposed to mean?”

Leo kisses her instead and they leave it at that.

*

She pretends that the fact that she’s never met anyone of his friends or family means anything. Marnie shoves that ugly thought away, back where she keeps all the ugly little thoughts she isn’t ready to deal with yet.

It’s a vacation after all.

*

“My hotel in Buenos Aires had an indoor pool,” Marnie complains, because she can’t sit poolside if the water even when heated is still to cold for her californian sensabilities.

“Are you going back soon?”

“Yeah,” responds not looking up at him, running her finger over the sugar on her margarita glass and bringing it to her mouth, before looking back up at him, “but not to the hotel. I’m flying home in two days.”

Leo’s face reveals nothing. She used to think she was that obtuse but she’s never been. Everything she feels and thinks is right there for anyone to see. She’s _expressive_. An open book.

“Then its back too work.” She says just too say something because she isn’t sure she wants to hear what he’ll say. Her feelings are all tangled up in whatever this is.

She plays with her margarita some more, with the umbrella, bringing it to her lips and biting at the pick because Marnie is _actually_ a five year old that doesn’t know how to stay focused and not get distracted and _not_ play with the umbrella decoration.

“Can I have your number,” Leo finally says, meeting her gaze. It feels heavy with the weight of promise and possibility. Marnie has only known Leo for days, can’t really know him in such a short time, but she can tell he wouldn't say something like this unless he means it.

Which means he means it.

Her heart beats hummingbird fast in her ribcage as she nods, “yeah, don’t be a stranger, keep in touch.”

They exchange numbers “even though I have no service here,” Marnie says, before finishing off her margarita and going over to kiss Leo. And he lets her drag him in from her balcony and into the room and they fuck which isn't surprising at all because that sort of what they’ve been doing and what she wants to keep on doing.

It’s amazing and there’s no pressure of a relationship or anything really. They lazy about after, nap, head out.

Maybe she can have this.

Because he’d said.

*

“I wanted to see you off, but I have physical therapy,” he says sounding sorry about the whole thing.

“It’s alright,” Marnie says, wrapping his jacket around herself tighter, not caring that she’s getting sweat all over it from dancing for the better part of the night. “This time I’ll actually take a taxi and not try to walk five six miles at midnight.”

“In the wrong direction.”

“Oh my god Leo,” she giggles, “you’re never going to let that go are you?”

“You make it so easy.”

*

She texts him once.

_Made it._

_And its summer._

_Like its supposed to be._

_*_

He texts her once.

_San Francisco < Rosario_

The next time Marnie sees Leo isn’t even in person. It’s been two years and she’d be lying if she said he hadn’t slipped her mind between work and school and graduating just a few months ago. Its been a busy two years that have done much to overshadow a week in Rosario. She's had just as many jobs. Internships. Life just sort of happened.

The next time she sees Leo she’s at a world cup watch party with Laura and Olivia and Olivia’s girlfriend. They’re mostly here for the drinks and food. That Shakira song has been all over the radio which is probably the most talked about part of the world cup in the states other than people grumbling about the super bowl. 

And then she’s on the couch which is already packed with more people than it can handle, wriggling her butt to carve out space next to Laura who just goes, “there’s no room just sit on my lap you dumbass," beer can in hand like they're still the hipsters they were freshman year only drinking PBR. 

“How bout no,” she responds, already half on Laura’s lap when she spot him on the tv. It’s a nice TV too. Maybe 50 inches. She wonders not for the first time who's place this is because its nice, probably a finance kid's. 

She hadn't even known Argentina was playing. Hadn't even known Leo played soccer professionally. It had just never come up. 

It’s undoubtably Leo, and it all rushes back to her, making her still for a second.

She hadn’t even known his last name.

 

 

_Sometimes the person you fall in love with isn’t the person you spend the rest of your life with._

**Author's Note:**

> so like ive hc that like leo got busy. marnie got busy. and yeah, it happens. leo gets on with his life the same way he does in real life. 
> 
> marnie and her bf were supposed to road trip across argentina's route 44, but they were flying into buenos aires. he left her for some other girl. its not really that important. 
> 
> *youtuber voice* tell me you opinion down in the comments


End file.
